Ten Biggest Battles of the 19th Century | Savereo John History Ten Biggest Battles of the 19th Century 2nd Italian war (French / Sardinian victory) Gravellotte, France Napoleonic wars (French victory) The question of which was the largest war of the 19th century is a matter of some debate, however broadly speaking, in scale, cost and impact, the biggest four were probably – The Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815) The Taiping Rebellion (1850 – 1864) The American Civil War (1861 – 1865) The Franco Prussian War (1870 – 1871) Although the Franco-Prussian war has many of the century’s largest battles, it was relatively short in duration containing a small number of large battles, most fought on the frontier – as a contest it was over within three months, although the siege of Paris continued into the following year. The American Civil War, by comparison, had more soldiers (about 3m), but lasted much longer (4 years) and consisted of a large number smaller battles (nearly 400).

The largest battle of that conflict was the Seven Days which had 195,000 combatants – about the same as Waterloo, but neither make it onto the list above. Neither do two other decisive battles of the 19th century – Austerlitz (1805) and Gettysburg (1863); both of which had about 170,000 combatants although Gettysburg lasted much longer, 3 days, whilst Napoleon needed just 8 hours to annihilate Kutuzov at Austerlitz. The Battle of Nanjing, China (1864) The 3rd battle of Nanjing was the decisive engagement of the Taiping Rebellion, which raged across southern China from 1850 to 1864, the latter stages occurring at the same time as American Civil War. About 1,000,000 government troops, loyal to the ruling Qing dynasty, fought about 500,000 well-armed Taiping rebels.

The Qing (“ch-ing”), known in western histories as the Manchu, had ruled China since the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644 and were originally from Manchuria, being of a separate ethnic group to the majority Han. Qing power reached its zenith in the early 18th century, particularly under the 61 year reign of the Kangxi Emperor and formed the basis of what is now the territorial area of modern China. During the early and mid 19th century a combination of natural disasters, economic stagnation and disastrous wars against more technologically advanced foreign powers, such as the British who annexed Hong Kong, had substantially eroded Qing authority. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom grew from a quasi-religious, millenarian cult founded by Hong Xiuquan (“hung hsiu-chuan”) in Guangxi province during the 1840’s. Hong had been an applicant for the Imperial Civil Service the previous decade who had locally been exposed to the preaching of Christian missionaries, and possessed a Chinese translation of the bible.

Although he paid little attention to Christianity at the time, when in 1836 he failed the entrance examinations for the 4th time (not so strange, the pass rate was less than 5%) the failure brought on a period of intense depression which culminated in a nervous breakdown during which he claimed to have experienced a spiritual revelation during a series of dreams. He interpreted this experience as a divine summons to rid China of “demon worship” and came to believe that he was a re-incarnation of the younger brother of Jesus Christ and began preaching among the local community of the Hakka ethnic group, of which we was a member. He laid out a quasi-Christian philosophy that included common ownership of property, equality for women (but also strict separation of the sexes) and the destruction of Buddhist and Confucian symbols and images. By 1840, the sect had as many as 40,000 followers and attracted the attention of the Qing authorities who attempted to violently supress it, leading eventually to civil war. The revolt proper began in Guangxi province in 1850 when a 10,000 strong Taiping force attacked and captured the town of Jintian (present day Guiping).

The Qing government, already heavily committed in the 2nd Opium War against the British, failed to quell the revolt and by 1853 and the rebels had occupied Nanjing and declared it their capital, changing its name to Tianjing (“heavenly capital”). The Heavenly Kingdom expanded its control over more of south east China and attempted to enlist the support of European powers, but were rebuffed. In 1860 they attempted to take the city of Shanghai, but were repulsed by Qing forces, by now trained and advised by a small number European officers, and a slow painful fightback by the government began. By 1864, most of the rebel area had been re-occupied and the Qing, by now with the support of western powers, prepared to re-take Nanjing. By June, Nanjing had been surrounded and was preparing for siege when Hong suddenly died, most likely of food poisoning.

With a force of 500,000 Qing troops against of maybe 400,000 in the city a bitter struggle erupted in the outer suburbs as government troops took the city gates and bridges one-by-one, eventually capturing the city on the 19th of July, and carrying out a massacre of the inhabitants in which as many 100,000 may have been killed. The fall of Nanjing effectively destroyed the Taiping army and, although sporadic resistance and interlinked rebellions in neighbouring provinces continued for several years afterwards, the Heavenly Kingdom collapsed with the fall of the city. The Taiping rebellion may well have been the largest and bloodiest civil war in all human history, although the Napoleonic wars in Europe were a larger scale conflict. Both sides engaged in the destruction of urban commercial centres and rural agricultural production, including the massacre of inhabitants, as an economic warfare tactic; as many as 600 major towns and cities were destroyed in this way.

It has been estimated that as many as 20-30m people died during the conflict – to put that in context, it is more than the total Soviet Union war dead, civilian and military, during the whole of the second world war. Always an avowedly peasant and working class movement, the Taiping were referenced in later Chinese history by both nationalist leader Sun Yat Sen and communist Mao Tse Tung as examples of the power of ordinary Chinese to stand up to a decaying and corrupt imperial system. Although victorious in the rebellion, the Qing dynasty was gone within 50 years; the last emperor, Pu Yi, was overthrown in 1912 and China became a republic after 2,000 years of rule by the Emperors. Siege of Paris (1870) At the outset of the Franco-Prussian war in July 1870, France was led by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte III (nephew of Napoleon I). Although elected as president of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power in a bloodless coup-d’état in 1851 and crowned himself Emperor, initiating the short lived Second Empire.

He had already fought a successful war in Italy to aid the Italian nationalists in ejecting the Austrian army from northern Italy and speeding Italian Unification as well his attempt to install Maximillian Hapsburg as Emperor of Mexico; he was also the prime mover in the coalition that fought Russia in the Crimean war. Prussia was then a monarchy under William I, but real power lay in the hands of his formidable Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. Territorially enlarged from wars with Austria and Denmark, and rapidly industrialising – Prussia was the “Tiger” economy of 19th century Europe, riding a wave of German nationalism as head of the North German Confederation – a growing and ever present threat to the pre-eminence of France in European power politics. When war broke out in 1870, the French appeared the stronger side – the two armies where evenly matched in size (900,000 French v 1.2m Prussians, Wurttenburgers and Bavarians), but the French had the interior lines and a much shorter route to the frontier. In addition, the French army was 50% regular troops, whilst the bulk of German force was conscript.

In weapons the French had a clear advantage – the German Dreyse rifle that had decimated the Austrians at Sadowa was now outclassed by the French Chassepot – the best in the world; also the French possessed the Mitrailleuse, an early form of machine gun. The Prussians for their part had the steel barrelled breech loading Krupp six-pounder artillery piece that fired contact detonating shells, whilst the French still used bronze cast muzzle loaders. The greatest advantage the Prussians had however was their leaders – they had the only professional general staff in Europe – the speed and efficiency of their mobilisation plus their adaptable tactics where to prove the decisive factor from day one. Only partly mobilised and badly organised, the French Army of the Rhine was divided into two wings – one under Marshall McMahon and accompanied by Louis Napoleon; the other, commanded by Marshall Bazaine and under huge political pressure, attacked first and crossed the border to occupy the manufacturing town of Saarbrucken. Rapidly outnumbered by the speedy Prussian mobilisation, the French fell back fighting a series of rear-guard actions as the Prussians, many deployed by rail, started to pour across the border.

The fast moving Prussian columns surrounded them and used their superior artillery to destroy most of the French army at the catastrophic defeats of Metz and Sedan in September 1870, after just 3 months of war, with Louis Napoleon himself among the captured. Von Moltke is reputed to have said to a captured French officer after Sedan “If my army had your rifles, I would have won this war in three weeks, and if your army had my generals then you would have won in two weeks!” What was left of the French army fell back into the defences of Paris. Completely cut off from outside supplies and able to communicate only by hot air balloon or carrier pigeon, the French held out from Sept until January of the following year, by which time much of Paris had been damaged by artillery bombardment and food was running out. The city was surrounded by 240,000 regulars of the pan German force and its defences contained 200,000 French regulars, plus another 200,000 militia and sailors; 640,000 in total.

French defeat brought about German re-unification plus the loss of Alsace – Lorraine and a huge indemnity (5 billion francs); the re-building of Berlin was paid for largely with the French indemnity. The most important consequence however was the proclamation of the 19th century German Empire – the Second Reich – in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Dresden and Leipzig (1813) The four day battle fought near Leipzig, Germany in October 1813 was also known as the Battle of the Nations, and was far the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and the largest pitched battle of the whole century. It was the decisive engagement of the Sixth Coalition war, fought by the allied powers to finish off Napoleon after his defeat in Russia. Just two weeks after Napoleon’s return from Russia a coalition formed consisting of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia to capitalise on his defeat and finish him off.

Napoleon, who still had a few allies (Kingdom of Italy, Duchy of Warsaw, Naples, Denmark-Norway, Switzerland, Confederation of the Rhine) was able to put 900,000 troops into the field against about 1 million allied troops, although this number swelled as the war went on and Napoleon’s allies began to defect – the allies swelled to 1.2m, whilst Napoleon’s army reduced to 400,000. The war was fought on three fronts. In Dec 1813, Swedish troops attacked the Danes in Holstein and fought the battles of Bornhoved (Swedish victory) and Sehested (Danish victory). By the terms of a separate treaty after the war in 1814, Denmark was forced to cede Norway, which had been previously ruled by Sweden during the 17th century. The Norwegians however rejected this and declared independence and this led to a Swedish invasion of Norway which restored rule from Stockholm and left Norway part of Sweden until 1905 when it regained its independence.

Meanwhile, in Iberia, A force of British and Portuguese regulars with Spanish partisans led by Arthur Wellesley had been tasked with completing the ejection of the French, begun in 1808. Allied victories at Burga and Vitoria where 100,000 allied troops (50% British, 25% each Spanish and Portuguese) defeated 65,000 French were followed by the Spanish capture of Pancorbo the following month. Despite a French fightback at the battles of Maya and Roncesvalles, by October 1813 the allies were across the Bidasoa river and into France proper. The main action however took place in Germany. Napoleon invaded Prussia with a force of 400,000 in April 1813 and defeated the allies at Lutzen and Bautzen, inflicting heavy casualties; a brief armistice was declared in June with the combined casualties from April having now reaching 250,000.

When fighting resumed in August, Napoleon with 135,000 defeated 214,000 Austrians, Russians and Prussians at the two day battle of Dresden; but weakened by his losses and lacking cavalry he withdrew 190,000 of his force to Leipzig in Saxony, where he was finally cornered by 430,000 Russian, Austrian, Prussian and Swedish troops (although 50% of the allied force was Russian). The resultant four day battle completely destroyed Napoleon’s force and he was compelled to flee. The following year, 1814, the allies invaded France and finally forced Napoleon to abdicate on 6th April 1814 – to be exiled to the Italian island of Elba, whilst the Bourbon monarchy was restored in France. Sadowa, Czech Republic (1866) Known also the Battle of Konnigratz, it was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian war.

Fought less than 12 months after the end of the Civil War in America, it had more than twice the number of combatants as that war’s largest battle – The Seven Days, Virginia (1863) which had 190,000. Austria’s defeat is regarded as an important milestone in the development of Prussian and, ultimately, German nationalism. The conflict marked the end of Austrian ambitions to be the leader of the huge collection of German speaking states that the medieval German empire (the First Reich) had collapsed into after the devastation of the Thirty Years War in the 17th century. The emerging power of Prussia, now rapidly industrialising and, with possession of the coal fields of Silesia, taken from the Austrians a century earlier, now became the clear leader among the German states.

Fought in a single day near the village of Sadowa in Bohemia; 221,000 Prussians, armed with rapid firing, breech loading Dreyse rifles beat 206,000 Austrians and Saxons still armed with muzzle loading musket-rifles; the Austrians suffering 44,000 casualties, against only 9,000 Prussian. The aftermath of the battle led directly to the formation of North German Confederation and fostered the idea of “little-Germany” nationalism – the idea of unification of German speakers, but without Austria. It was also an important pre-cursor conflict to the Franco – Prussian war four years later. Gravellotte, Metz, Sedan (1870) Marshall Bazaine’s early advance into Saarland was quickly reversed as the German commander von Moltke deployed his huge force to outflank and surround them. The French rapidly withdrew across the border with the Prussians in pursuit; on 4th August von Moltke attacked part of McMahon’s army at Wissembourg in the first major battle of the war.

8,000 French troops with 12 guns fortified the small town and fought hand to hand in the streets against 60,000 Germans. The local populace, trapped in the town during the fighting were eventually so sickened by the slaughter around them, that they formerly surrendered the town to the Germans to stop the bloodshed. Further Prussian victories at Worth and Spickeren left Bazaine’s force falling back towards the fortress of Metz and led to the two interlinked battles of Mars-Le-Tour and Gravellotte. At the second of these the French were finally able to establish an effective defensive posture and took a heavy toll of the Prussian infantry, who lost 20,000 casualties to Chassepot and Mitrailleuse fire against 12,000 of their own, almost all of those from artillery fire . Although a tactical French victory, Baziane’s army had been badly mauled and fell back to the defences of Metz to regroup and await re-enforcements from McMahon.

Von Moltke, like Grant at Fort Donaldson in 1862 or O’Connor in the western desert in 1940, realised that by quick manoeuvre he could cut off the routes into the town and turn a fortress into a prison. Quickly surrounding Metz he trapped 190,000 French troops in the fortifications of a small town designed to hold a tenth of that number. The newly formed French Army of Chalons commanded by McMahon made two attempts to relieve Metz, the first was defeated at Beaumont-en-Argonne whilst the second occurred close to the fortress of Sedan where McMahon’s main force was deployed. Again, the battle centered on a small town, in this case Bazeilles, who’s populace where trapped in the town during the fighting and helped the army build barricades as the battle commenced with a street by street fight for the town. The fighting spread south from the town into the countryside with McMahon himself wounded – under heavy Prussian artillery fire, the French were finally driven inside the defences of Sedan, where they were rapidly surrounded and cut off from any relief.

The following day, 2nd September, 120,000 men of the army of Chalons surrendered along with their commander McMahon and their Emperor Louis Napoleon. Shortly afterwards, and facing starvation, the 190,000 troops in Metz also surrendered. With the fall of Sedan, the bulk of France’s field army had been lost after just 3 months of war; on the following day, 3rd September the news of Louis Napoleon’s capture reached Paris and a bloodless coup-d’état ensued led by Trochu, Favre and Gambetta that overthrew Louis Napoleon and proclaimed the Third Republic, plus a determination to continue the war. Just as in 1940 after Dunkirk, the small remnant of the regular army that survived fought back with near fanatical bravery, but it was too late. Once they had fallen back to the defences of Paris, their fate was sealed. Louis Napoleon was to go into exile after the war in Britain, where he lived at Camden House, Chislehurst until his death in 1873, referring several times in his last words to Sedan.

Solferino (1859) Louis Napoleon is remembered as the loser at Sedan, but he was no fool, he had his successes too. One of these was his assistance to the Italian independence struggle, La Risorgimento (“the Resurgence”). Italy had long been divided into petty states that individually fell prey to many foreign powers over the centuries – Spanish, French and Austrian – and its independence movement was initially looked on favourably by France and Britain, but neither were prepared to do anything to upset the Austrians. Consequently the First Italian Independence war, fought by the leading Italian state, Piedmont to drive the Austrians from Lombardy and Venice, failed through lack of great power support. The situation was brought home to Louis Napoleon personally in 1858, when an attempt was made on his life; this shocked Napoleon into realising that the Italian situation would spiral out of control if not resolved and he determined to aid the nationalists in the hope of acquiring a useful ally in the new Italy and seriously diminishing his rival Austria in the process. Piedmont had previously been an ally for the French in the Crimean war; it also had a railway line designed by Brunel.

Thus was set the scene for the Second Italian Independence war, the decisive engagement of which was the seventh largest battle of the 19th century, fought near the villages of Solferino and San Martino, south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona. In 1858, Louis Napoleon concluded a secret treaty with the Comte di Cavour, prime minister of Piedmont that France would aid the Italians in ejecting the Austrians from Lombardy and Venice, whilst receiving the provinces of Nice and Savoy in return. Napoleon committed half the French army – 130,000 men, plus brought along 70,000 Sardinian troops against 240,000 Austrians. At the outbreak of war, there were no French troops in Italy, so the French commander, McMahon organised a mass deployment by rail into Piedmont to link up with the Sardinians. The first major clash was at the battle fought for the railway junction at Magenta, near Milan in June 1859 where McMahon’s 60,000 men defeated 125,000 Austrians and shortly afterwards occupied Milan.

The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I now personally took command of his army, the last European battle in which two monarchs personally led their armies against each other. Attempting to counter – attack after their defeat at Magenta, they ran into the French at Solferino and were drawn into a confused and fast moving fight for three small towns Solferino, Cavriana and Volta Mantovana. Badly mauled, the Austrians drew off beyond the Micinio and Po rivers and, at the treaty of Villafranca in July 1859 ceded Lombardy to the Piedmontese, but not Venice. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed two years later, in 1861. The battle will remain best known however, for the visit to battlefield after the conclusion by a Swiss businessman and philanthropist where he witnessed the suffering of the battle’s estimated 30,000 casualties and was moved to found an organisation to relieve their suffering who took it’s symbol from the reverse colours of the Swiss flag. The businessman was Henri Dunant and the organisation he founded was the Red Cross.

Wagram (1809) During the Fourth Coalition war, and after Napoleon’s success against the Austrians at Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805, Austria had been left subdued, and the Emperor turned his attention to Prussia. At the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt Napoleon’s 120,000 French troops defeated 110,000 Prussians and Saxons so comprehensively that Berlin was occupied shortly afterwards and Prussia reduced to a French vassal state, which it would remain until the Sixth Coalition war in 1812. The trauma that Prussia suffered during the Napoleonic occupation acted as a spur to the modernisation of the state – later reformers such as Clausewitz , Scharnhorst and Gneisenau served in the army and were profoundly affected by it, as was the philosopher Hegel who called it “the end of history”.

Wagram was the main engagement of the Fifth Coalition War, and was fought in 1809; the coalition consisted of Austria, Great Britain, Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and Brunswick against a French led alliance with Duchy of Warsaw, Confederation of the Rhine, Italy, Naples, Switzerland and Holland. The war was fought on two fronts. In Iberia, both Spain and Portugal had been invaded a few years earlier and the small British force driven out, when Napoleon entered Madrid at the head of 80,000 troops having first fomented a coup. By 1809, however, the British had returned and with Arthur Wellesley in command set about the recovery of Portugal, after Marshall Soult had invaded again. Wellesley’s Anglo-Portuguese force defeated Soult at Grijo and Porto in May, whilst Marshall Ney with another French force was defeated by the Spanish at Puente Sanpayo. With Portugal secure, Wellesley pushed on into Spain and linked up with Spanish partisans.

The costly British victory at Talvera forced Wellesley’s hasty retreat after the battle with French re-enforcements nearby, but the essential objective, that of liberating Portugal, had been achieved. Buoyed by allied success in Iberia, and heavily subsidised by the British, the Austrians made their move by invading Napoleon’s ally, Bavaria in March 1809. The Austrians massed their army in Bohemia on the frontier of Prussia, then a French vassal, in the hope that it would foment an anti – French revolt and bring in Prussia on the allied side, but this never happened. Also, Austrian hopes of assistance from the Russians were dashed by the fact that they were technically at war with Britain, which also meant that Britain’s ally Sweden would not intervene either. Nonetheless, the speed of the Austrian advance across the Inn river caught the French by surprise and at first they fell back as a series of mistakes by the French commander Berthier allowed the Austrians to occupy the old imperial capital of Regensberg.

Napoleon himself arrived in Bavaria on 17th April to take command and launched a series of counterattacks that resulted in the French victories at the battles of Eckmuhl and Ebersberg and re-took Regensberg while the battered remains of the Austrian army fled back across the border. Pursuing them, Napoleon crossed into Austria and, on the 13th May occupied Vienna for the second time in four years. Despite a failed attempt to cross the Danube that resulted in the battle of Aspern-Essling (Napoleon’s first significant battle defeat), the French retained the initiative and crossed the Danube in force in June and resumed the offensive. The two armies finally met near the village of Wagram north east of Vienna where 140,000 French fought a two day battle against 160,000 Austrians resulting in a decisive French victory with high casualties on both sides (80,000 in total), mostly caused by artillery fire into the packed ranks of 300,000 troops crammed into a battlefield just a few miles across.

Napoleon imposed harsh terms on the Austrians taking provinces containing 20% of Austria’s population and leaving them bankrupt. Despite his overwhelming success, the Fifth Coalition war was to prove the high water mark for French ambitions – just three years later Napoleon embarked on his disastrous Russian campaign, followed by the cataclysm of the Sixth Coalition war in 1813/14 that climaxed with the battle of Leipzig and the eventual fall of France and Napoleon’s abdication in April 1814. Copyright ©2015 Savereo John BritishBattles.com analysing and documenting British Battles from the previous centuries Buy this from Art.com We have on our site a long list of battles with descriptions of what took place and other essential information. Most of our pages have a map of the battle designed and drafted by our own Military Cartographer, John Fawkes. While our battles are primarily British battles there are many other battles of interest including all the important battles fought by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia in the Mid-18th Century. All the battles are extensively illustrated with pictures both well-known and more obscure. Prints of many of these pictures can be purchased through the site as can the maps.

General George Washington crossing the Delaware at the Battle of Trenton on Christmas night 1776 by Emmanuel Leutze Click here or on image to buy a print Map of the Battle of Minden fought on 1st August 1759 by the Prussians, Hanoverians, Hessians and the British against the French; at which the British infantry made their famous advance against the French cavalry with roses in their hats, an episode celebrated every year by the “Minden Regiments” Our most recent additions are: Twentieth Century Atlas - Casualty Statistics - Biggest Battles and Massacres Massacres Bloodiest Battles of the 20th Century By the beginning of the 20th Century, the concept of battle had gotten extremely vague. The idea that armies would bloodlessly maneuver into position before engaging in a brief, concentrated clash of arms was a thing of the past. Twentieth Century wars were continuous in both time and space. They were fought day and night, winter and summer, over weeks and months at a time. Major battlefronts often spanned entire countries, and even minor battlefields could easily be fifty mile wide and fifty miles deep.

Obviously any attempt to isolate individual battles in this continuity is not going to be easy; however, the events listed here have been labelled battles at one time or another. (Most of this list would not be allowed under the narrow, 19th Century definition of "battle". A purist would probably count only a few naval engagements (Midway, Jutland, etc.) and a few geographically restricted operations (Berlin, D-Day, etc.) -- especially those confined to single islands (Okinawa, Iwo Jima, etc.) -- as proper battles. Unfortunately for the purist, common usage has already expanded the term to include larger events such as the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of the Atlantic, all of which would be called "campaigns" in Napoleonic or American Civil War usage. My definition is typically loose, and I have counted a "battle" as any military operation that is usually discussed and analysed by historians as a single event.) These battles are ranked by the number of military deaths only. I have not counted civilian deaths because then we would drift off into the realm of massacres.

If we decide that Okinawa and Leningrad deserve a higher ranking because of associated civilian losses, then we'd have to consider counting Hiroshima and Nanjing, and that's just a different category altogether. For the same reason, I haven't counted POWs that were escorted safely away from the battlefield, only to die later in captivity. One of the difficulties in compiling this list is that many writers don't realize that casualties, deaths and losses are not the same thing, so they count "losses" as killed, and call the dead "casualties". I've preferred taking numbers from sources that demonstrate that they know the difference. If I have found a source where the killed are differentiated from the wounded on one side but not the other, I generally have applied the same ratio to all sides. Otherwise, I just make do with the standard 3:1 ratio of wounded to killed. One comment: The unprecedented scale of the two world wars becomes apparent when we realize that even small pieces of them killed more than most of the other complete wars of the Century. Even more horrific, World War II's Russian Front produced 13 of the century's 15 bloodiest battles all by itself.

(The siege of Leningrad alone could rank as the 20th Century's 12th worst atrocity once civilian deaths are added in.) In fact, part of why this list so long is that I wanted to get far enough down to show some other wars as well. To help you keep these straight, I've color-coded the principle wars: World War I, World War II in Russia and World War II elsewhere. Here then is a very debatable and incomplete list of contenders for the title of the 20th Century's bloodiest battles. My own estimate of total military deaths in each is in bold following the name and date. All my sources are listed, so if it's not immediately apparent where I got it, consider it as just a rough guess. Leningrad , World War II (8 Sept. 1941-27 Jan. 1944) 850 000 [ make link ] David Glantz, The Siege of Leningrad 1941-44: 900 Days of Terror Total number of soldiers and civilians who perished: 1.6M-2.0M Soviet civilians: 642,000 d.

in blockade (est. at Nuremburg trials), plus another 400,000 d. in evacuations, for a total of about a million. Soviet soldiers: 1,017,881 k/cap/mis + 2,418,185 wd/sick = 3,437,066 casualties [p.179]. (Based on statistics of Leningrad "Front", i.e. army group [p.220: 332,059 k. + 24,324 non-combat dead + 111,142 captured & missing = 467,525 "irrevocable"], it appears that KIA would be 71% of k/c/m, or ca. 725,000) Erickson, Barbarossa: The Axis and the Allies. Table 12.4 (USSR KIA) Defense (10 July-30 Sept. 1941): 214,078 Operation ISKRA (12-30 Jan.

1943): 33,940 L'grad-Novgorod Offensive (14 Jan.-1 March 1944): 76,686 [Total: 324,704] Worst Massacres of the 20th Century (Well, one more list for people to yell at me about...) Here are some of the major episodes in which huge numbers of non-combatants were killed at more or less a single place over a relatively limited time. The traditional definition of massacre would require that all the killing be done deliberately and face-to-face over the course of a day or two, but I've loosened up that part in order to compare numbers from a variety of concentrated mass killings. I'm not saying that all of these events are morally equal. International law usually allows the destruction of the war-making abilities of the enemy, including their industrial infrastructure, transportation network and (unfortunately) their workforce; however, once a civilian population or collection of prisoners comes under the control of a conquering army, they are no longer a threat, and they are supposed to be treated with basic human decency.

It all depends on whether the victims constitute an immediate threat, an eventual threat, or no threat at all. You're allowed to kill sleeping enemy soldiers in an armed camp in a war zone, but not sleeping enemy soldiers in one of your POW camps. A merchant ship sailing in an armed enemy convoy may be torpedoed without warning, but an unarmed merchant ship sailing alone on the high seas should be challenged and allowed to evacuate passengers and crew first. Just to belabor an obvious point, these are individual events at single points on the map - usually a city, prison or town. Most of the killing at Treblinka, for example, occurred inside a .1345 or .21 square kilometer camp. The Rwanda massacres, on the other hand, were many events spread out across the 26,338 square kilometers of an entire country, so I don't count those. In borderline cases such as Katyn (three related massacres) and Kolyma (a large complex of labor camps operating for many years), I've leaned toward inclusion because these are smaller parts of a larger whole. Total death tolls for multiple events considered collectively can be found using the main index .

For the purists among you, I've starred (*) the events that are usually considered to fit into the narrowest definition of massacre: the deliberate, face-to-face and immediate killing of helpless victims. Also, I've used brown font to label events of the Holocaust. Auschwitz , Poland (German death camp: Jan. 1942-Jan. 1945): 1 200 000 [ make link ] US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Historical Atlas of the Holocaust and Jews: 1,100,000 The 20th century’s 10 deadliest battles - Army Technology The Israeli Air Force largely relied on its Dassault Mirage III to strike the targets of Arab allies. The 20th century’s 10 deadliest battles The 20th century witnessed some of the worst military disasters ever in history during the two World Wars and other conflicts. Army-technology.com lists the 10 worst military disasters in the 20th century based on the reported casualties. The 20th century witnessed some of the worst military disasters ever in history during the two World Wars and other conflicts.

Army-technology.com lists the ten worst military disasters in the 20th century based on the reported casualties. Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad caused about two million casualties from Soviet and Axis forces and stands as one of the century's worst military disaster. It was one of the bloodiest battles in history and is considered as one of the major battles in the World War II. The Germans were surprised by the troop strength of the Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) as the Soviet Union deployed over a million soldiers in Operation Uranus to thwart the German Army inside the city. The Axis forces were heavily defeated by the Red Army at Stalingrad, resulting in withdrawal of their vast military force from the West to reinforce the losses in the East. The death toll at Stalingrad was huge, leaving about 850,000 Axis soldiers dead, missing or wounded in the battle, and more than a million Soviet soldiers downed, missing or wounded. Most of the civilians residing in the city also died during the combat. Battle of Moscow The Battle of Moscow, code-named 'Operation Typhoon' by the Germans, occurred during World War II and witnessed about 1.6 million casualties.

The battle, which commenced in October 1941, was largely a defensive effort by the Soviets against the German attack on Moscow. The Red Army counter-attacked against the Germans to enable them to withdraw from Moscow when the offensive ceased. The battle ended in January 1942, leaving estimated casualties of 174,000 to 400,000 for Germany and 650,000 to 1.2 million casualties for the Red Army. The defence of Moscow marked the success of Soviet resistance against the Axis forces and an operational and tactical failure for the Germans. Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, caused the loss of more than 1.2 million lives from both the British-French empires and German Empire . Fought from July to November 1918 near the Somme River in France, it was one of the biggest conflicts of World War I.

The Battle of the Somme remains one of the bloodiest fights in history having caused approximately 57,000 casualties for the British Army on the very first day of the battle, blamed on the inexperience and patchy training of the British soldiers. About 420,000 soldiers of British and Commonwealth forces died, were wounded or went missing during the fight, while French losses were more than 204,000 . On the other hand, the German Empire suffered about 680,000 casualties. The Allied forces seized a strip of land just 20 miles wide and 6 miles long from German possession at the cost of a huge number of casualties. Operation Bagration With total casualties of over 1.1 million, Operation Bagration was one of the worst military disasters in the history. Operation Bagration was a code name of the Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation to clear German forces from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland during World War II. The operation resulted in the devastation of 28 of 38 German Army divisions. About 350,000 to 400,000 men from the German Army were killed, wounded or captured.

It was treated as the defeat resulting in the most German armed forces casualties in World War II. The Red Army suffered more than 770,000 casualties, of which 180,000 were killed or missing in the action, and over 590,000 men were wounded. The Soviet forces liberated a large amount of their territory from Germany and significantly destroyed the German Army Group Centre. Battle of Gallipoli The Battle of Gallipoli, also referred to as the Gallipoli Campaign or the Dardanelles Campaign, left over 500,000 casualties. Fought on the Gallipoli peninsula, the World War I battle turned into a disaster when the Allied powers failed to control the sea route from Europe to Russia. British and French vessels initiated naval attack on the Dardanelles Straits in February 1915, while troops from Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula on land in April of the same year.

The Allied powers suffered over 250,000 casualties prior to their final evacuation from Gallipoli in January 2016, and the Ottoman Empire's casualties and losses totalled 218,000 to 250,000. The invasion ended unsuccessful as the Allied forces experienced fierce counter-attack from Ottoman troops. Bad weather, insufficient artillery, and inaccurate maps and intelligence also contributed to the failure of the Allied forces. Battle of France The Battle of France, or the Fall of France as it is more popularly known, accounted for total casualties of more than 500,000 soldiers from Allied and Axis forces. The battle included Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) and Fall Rot (Case Red) operations. The Fall of France was a successful German invasion of France, as well as Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. About 360,000 men of the Allied armies were dead or wounded, while the Axis suffered over 160,000 casualties. The French military resistance ended when German forces occupied Paris in June 1940 and France was subsequently occupied by Germany under an armistice signed between the nations.

France remained under Axis occupation until liberated by the Allied forces in 1944. Battle of Kolubara The Battle of Kolubara or the Battle of Suvobor turned into one of the worst military disasters when a strong Austria-Hungarian invasion force was turned back by a poorly-equipped Serbian Army. The battle resulted in more than 350,000 casualties. The Battle of Kolubara was regarded as the biggest fight between the Serbian and Austro-Hungarian armies during World War I. It involved the deployment of 450,000 Austria-Hungarian troops and 250,000 Serbian forces. Austria-Hungarian armies suffered 224,500 casualties, and the Serbian Army's casualties accounted for 133,000 troops. The battle proved the successful Serbian counteroffensive capabilities against well-equipped Austria-Hungarian forces. Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive, resulting in total casualties of more than 100,000, was a major offensive began by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies in 1968.

The Tet Offensive was one of the biggest military combats of the Vietnam War. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong lost over 45,000 troops, while over 20,000 soldiers of South Vietnam and allies were killed and wounded in the action. Over 14,000 civilians died and 24,000 were wounded during the conflict. The Tet Offensive proved to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. The conflict had a heavy impact on the US government and ultimately led to the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, although it was a tactical victory for the South Vietnam and US forces. Operation Market Garden The Operation Market Garden disaster occurred when Allied forces failed to encircle the Ruhr Area. The battle resulted in over 26,000 casualties. Allied forces launched Operation Market Garden in September 1944 to create a 64 mile-long airborne corridor allowing the entry of tanks and troops into Northern Germany.

Over 20,000 paratroopers and more than 13,500 glider pilots, 5,200t of equipment, 1,900 vehicles and 560 guns were dropped during the operation making it the biggest airborne operation of those times. Allied troops successfully captured a number of bridges during the initial stages of the operation, but experienced fiercer German resistance than expected. The Allies failed to cross the Rhine River in sufficient force and, as a result, suffered over 17,000 casualties. The German casualties and losses were estimated at about 9,000. Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War, caused more than 23,000 casualties in a surprise attack by Israel on Egypt, Jordan and Syria in response to Arab threats of invasion. The Six-Day War began on 5 June 1967 when Israel launched surprise bombing raids against Egyptian air-ields. The Air Forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria suffered heavy damage due to Israeli Air Force attacks.

Israel launched a series of ground, air and naval attacks, and took control of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel suffered minimal casualties of over 5,000, while Egypt's casualties totalled 15,000. The casualties of Syria and Jordan accounted for 2,500 and 800 respectively. Share Battle of Waterloo - British History - HISTORY.com Battle of Waterloo A+E Networks Introduction The Battle of Waterloo, which took place in Belgium on June 18, 1815, marked the final defeat of French military leader and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), who conquered much of continental Europe in the early 19th century. Napoleon rose through the ranks of the French army during the French Revolution (1789-1799), seized control of the French government in 1799 and became emperor in 1804. Through a series of wars, he expanded his empire across western and central Europe.

However, a disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, coupled with other defeats, led to his abdication and exile in 1814. He returned to France in 1815 and briefly resumed power. The Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by the British and Prussians, signaled the end of his reign and the end of France’s domination in Europe. After Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated and later died in exile. Google Napoleon’s Rise to Power Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The year before his birth, France acquired Corsica from the city-state of Genoa, Italy. Although Napoleon’s parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility, his family was not wealthy. Did You Know? Today, the expression that someone has “met his Waterloo” means the person has suffered a decisive or final defeat or setback. After graduating from a French military academy in 1785, Napoleon joined an artillery regiment of the French army. The French Revolution began in 1789, and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic.

During the decade-long revolution, Napoleon rose rapidly through the ranks of the military and proved himself a talented and daring leader. After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état, he was given the title of first consul and became France’s leading political figure. In 1804, he crowned himself the emperor of France in a lavish ceremony. Under Napoleon, France engaged in a successful series of battles against various coalitions of European nations, and the French empire expanded across much of western and central continental Europe. Napoleon’s Abdication and Return In 1812, Napoleon led a disastrous invasion of Russia in which his army was forced to retreat and suffered massive casualties. At the same time, the Spanish and Portuguese, with assistance from the British, drove Napoleon’s forces from the Iberian Peninsula in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). In the 1813 Battle of Leipzig , also known as the Battle of Nations, Napoleon’s army was defeated by a coalition that included Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. Afterward, Napoleon retreated to France, where in March 1814 coalition forces captured Paris.

On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy. Less than a year later, on February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1,000 supporters. On March 20, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds. The new king, Louis XVIII (1755-1824), fled, and Napoleon embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign. Napoleon Marches on Belgium Upon Napoleon’s return to France, a coalition of allies–the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians–who considered the French emperor an enemy began to prepare for war. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him. In June 1815, Napoleon’s forces marched into Belgium, where separate armies of British and Prussian troops were camped.

At the Battle of Ligny, on June 16, Napoleon defeated the Prussians under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher (1742-1819). However, the French were unable to totally destroy the Prussian army. The Battle of Waterloo Two days later, on June 18, Napoleon led his army of some 72,000 troops against the 68,000-man British army, which had taken up a position south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo. The British army, which included Belgian, Dutch and German troops, was commanded by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), who had gained prominence fighting against the French during the Peninsular War. In a critical blunder, Napoleon waited until midday to give the command to attack in order to let the waterlogged ground dry after the previous night’s rainstorm. The delay gave Blucher’s remaining troops, who, by some accounts, numbered more than 30,000, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle later that day.

Although Napoleon’s troops mounted a strong attack against the British, the arrival of the Prussians turned the tide against the French. The French emperor’s outnumbered army retreated in chaos. By some estimates, the French suffered more than 33,000 casualties (including dead, wounded or taken prisoner), while British and Prussian casualties numbered more than 22,000. Reportedly fatigued and in poor health during the Belgian campaign, Napoleon committed tactical errors and acted indecisively. He also was blamed for appointing inadequate commanders. Ultimately, the Battle of Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s storied military career. He reportedly rode away from the battle in tears. Wellington went on to serve as British prime minister, while Blucher, in his 70s at the time of the Waterloo battle, died a few years later. Napoleon’s Final Years On June 22, 1815, Napoleon once again abdicated. That October, he was exiled to the remote, British-held island of Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there on May 5, 1821, at age 51, most likely from stomach cancer.

Napoleon was buried on the island; however, in 1840, his remains were returned to France and entombed in a crypt at Les Invalides in Paris, where other French military leaders are interred. Tags

Question: The Battle of Dungeness was fought in which century?
Answer: 17th